AGIR recovery

All change in the Transat AG2R La Mondiale

The odd goings-on in the Transat AG2R La Mondiale that has seen BritAir's Armel Le Cleac'h and Fabien Delahaye not only lose the lead to Adrien Hardy and Stanislas Maslard on AGIR Recouvrement, but drop them to fifth on the water, has been down to the weather scenario to the north of the fleet. The high pressure to their north that was causing the excellent trade winds to blow last week has elongated to the north, while another high is dominating the west side of the central North Atlantic and it has been the tactics for evading this 'no man's zone' between the two that has created the present situation.

The leaders from last week, including BritAir and Romain Attanasio and Sam Davies on Saveol, have all dived a long way south to avoid an area potentially lacking wind to the south of the transition zone, causing the boats to the north that are closer to the great circle to look better in terms of DTF to the St Barts finish line.

Now there is a 588 mile north-south divide across the race course with Kito de Pavant and Sebastien Audiagne on Groupe Bel furthest north, following their Canary Islands pitstop, and now not looking so shabby having hoisted themselves up from last place to 13th.

Furthest south is a group led by Nicolas Lunven and Jean le Cam on Generali, while Saveol, Banque Populaire and Cercle Verte remain in the group 90 miles to Generali's northwest and over the four hours leading up to the latest sched were recording the highest average speeds in the fleet. All the southerly group are forging southwest on port gybe in a 15-20 knot ENEerly wind.

So what's going to happen? It looks like the boats to the south will remain in a generally easterly breeze, while in 24 hours the present leading boats will be all but becalmed and in the north Groupe Bel will be on the wind in southwesterlies. In 48 hours time the high to the northwest will have elongated east, causing the wind to fill in from the north/northeast for the present leaders and eventually Groupe Bel. Typically remaining south on this race course can lead to a strong finish enabling these to reach into the finish on a hotter angle, however the way the westerly high develops over the next few days, looks set to cause the wind to veer east, so the north could still pay.

See the top image full size here courtesy of Expedition Navigation Systems and PredictWind.